


The Case of the Visiting Spies

by PR Zed (przed)



Category: A Study in Emerald - Neil Gaiman, Wild Wild West (TV)
Genre: Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-19
Updated: 2013-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-05 03:40:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1089186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/przed/pseuds/PR%20Zed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The New Worlders were not what I expected of God Killers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Case of the Visiting Spies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zaganthi (Caffiends)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caffiends/gifts).



The New Worlders were not what I expected of God Killers.

Artemus Gordon was a distinguished-looking man with an upright bearing and the appearance more of a genial professor than a government agent.

"I've read your monograph expanding upon Babbage's difference engine," he said as he held his hand out to my friend, Professor Moriarty. "It was revolutionary." His voice was rich and bore the features of one trained for the stage.

"And I've read yours on the use of the piezoelectric effect in detonating devices. Your conclusions are fascinating." Moriarty does not flatter when it comes to the sciences, so I knew Gordon must have a superior mind.

I'd been told James West was the younger of the pair, but I would have guessed him the elder by at least a decade. He was not a tall man, and he moved fluidly, but there was something in the way he held himself that spoke of ever-present pain. Though he must have once been handsome, his face bore the ravages of some great trial, and his green eyes had the watchfulness of one who has seen too much.

I saw he had the measure of me in no time. My own wound was hidden beneath my clothes, and nearly healed, yet his eyes were drawn immediately to its location. His reaction to the knowledge of what I had suffered was subtle, but telling. He met my gaze, blinked, and gave me a nod of acknowledgement of the sort shared between soldiers who have seen the same battle. 

But my accomplishment, of merely surviving a meeting with one of the bloodier of the Old Ones, was minor in comparison with his. For he and his partner were the men who had vanquished the Old Ones of the Confederacy, ending the bloody Civil War that had nearly torn their country apart, and reunifying the entire continent under the being we call He Who Presides Over the New World, but they call simply the President.

I could not help but wonder what might have happened had we had such men in Afghanistan. 

Moriarty had not told me the reason for the New Worlders' visit, nor for our involvement with them. In the days before they arrived at our door, there had been a series of visits from men who looked like they might be associated with the Palace, as well as a few rough-looking coves who were definitely not on intimate terms with royalty. Then, an hour before they knocked on our door, my friend had taken me aside and explained who Artemus Gordon and James West were and what they had done.

They entered our rooms exhausted and travel weary, with the dust of their journey from Plymouth still on their clothes. My friend welcomed them warmly and had Mrs. Hudson prepare them warm food and a pot of tea. Once their spirits had been restored by our landlady's fine cooking, my friend produced keys to rooms in the neighbourhood he had let for them, and sent them and their baggage off with a cabbie he trusts in especially treacherous circumstances.

We settled into a pattern. Each morning, the New Worlders would appear at our rooms for their morning meal. After we had all broken our fast together, my friend and Gordon would repair behind his bedroom door for private consultation, or would disappear out the door on some unknown mission, leaving me to entertain West.

It was hardly an unpleasant task. We shared a military background, so we never lacked for topics of conversation. And I enjoyed showing him the best, the most magnificent, the most awe-inspiring sights of our city. We took in the great art of the National Gallery, and the dark tower of Buckingham Palace. We strolled through the loveliness of Kew Gardens and the terrible dungeons of the Tower of London. 

But then, after a week, there was a break in our routine. Gordon and West did not appear at their usual time. In their place was a young street arab with a crumbled note for "his honour." Moriarty read the note, called for Mrs. Hudson to pack us a portable breakfast, and then we headed for the rooms where our new friends had been residing.

A young Irish serving girl responded to our knock and waved us inside. She led the way upstairs to their flat in an absolute flutter.

"Mr. West is in a bad way today," she said. "He looked a bit peaked yesterday, but today there was no rousing him. Mr. Gordon hasn't left his side."

She led us down a corridor, and then opened the door on a bedroom. There, we found West, supine on a large bed, all colour drained from his face, and his breath coming in laboured heaves. As their servant had informed us, Gordon was at his side, wiping West's face with a wet flannel, looking at him with concern.

"You'll be fine," Gordon told his partner, his hearty tone undermined by the worry in his eyes.

"I know I will," West wheezed out. "Now, will you stop fussing?"

"I'm not fussing, merely concerned," Gordon said, before he turned to meet us. "Gentlemen, I'm sorry we could not make our usual rendezvous. We so enjoy your housekeeper's breakfasts."

"We've brought food with us," I blurted out.

"Excellent." A look of real pleasure washed over Gordon's face, supplanting his worry for a moment. "I hope you won't mind if we take our meal in here. James can't quite make it to the dining room at the moment."

"Of course not," my friend said with utmost solicitousness.

The servant girl was called, and set up a portable table in the room laid with Mrs. Hudson's repast. We four consumed our meal with a forced gusto, and with not a word said about the condition in which we found West. At least, none until Gordon was wiping the final crumb of toast from his chin with a fine linen napkin.

"Major, I was wondering if I could ask a favour of you." He flashed a quick grin at West, who returned it with a scowl, before he directed his attention at me. "Could I trouble you to sit with my friend for the day?"

"There's no need for that," West blurted out, even as I said "I'd be delighted."

"You don't have to," West said to me.

"I don't mind," I replied.

"That's settled," Gordon said, clapping his hands together.

While Moriarty set about recovering his coat and gloves, Gordon said a gentle goodbye to his friend. Then he and my friend were both gone, yet again without a word about what they were doing or where they might be.

I do not generally take to the role of nurse easily, but sitting with West proved as pleasurable as showing him around London. There was no lack of conversation between us, and the occasional lull in words seemed comfortable rather than awkward.

Our time together passed so agreeably, I was surprised when the little Irish girl brought our lunch. I felt as if I'd known West for years, instead of mere days, which is possibly why I asked him the question I did.

"Is it your wound?" I asked. "The reason for your infirmity?"

"Yes," he said with a quick nod of his head. His expression went from sunny and open to pain-filled and closed in a split second, leaving me wishing I'd never interrogated him on the subject. And yet, now that I'd brought it up, there was one thing more I had to know.

"The President could not heal your wound?" I asked. Though she and her kind terrify me still, I am nonetheless grateful to our Queen of Albion for repairing the damage that was done to me in Afghanistan. The healing is not complete, and the pain is not entirely gone, but she gave me back my health and vigour.

"He _would_ not," West said, his voice a tight, low growl. "As a reminder of my mortality."

I could say nothing more to that. I remembered our Queen's cold fury at the murder of her nephew. What complicated mix of emotions, then, must the President feel, knowing he'd ordered the death of his own Kind at the hands of mere humans? It was a wonder he'd allowed both West and his associate to live at all. That he _had_ allowed it spoke of how valuable he must consider them, but their position could not help but be precarious.

An uncomfortable quiet descended over us then, until West dispelled it with the offer of a game of chess. When Gordon returned, as evening was beginning to fall, he found us engrossed in the game.

My back was to the door of the sitting room, so I didn't see Gordon enter the room. But West did, and the change in his expression was remarkable. Apart from the intrusion of that one unpleasant topic, we had spent our day in pleasing amity, and I had coaxed more than one smile to West's face. But those were pale imitations beside the smile he wore upon seeing Gordon.

I turned, and saw a matching expression on Gordon's face as he moved forward and took his friend's hand in his own.

"You're looking better, James," Gordon said, with real gusto. He then turned to me. "Thank you for sitting with my friend."

"It was no trouble at all," I said, meaning every syllable. "Is Moriarty with you?" I asked, suddenly needing to see my own friend very badly indeed.

"The professor returned to your rooms by himself."

"Then I should join him." I stood and bowed to them both. "I trust I shall see you both tomorrow?"

They both answered in the affirmative, and bid me goodbye, and the little Irish girl let me out of the flat. Though West and Gordon had been nothing but cordial, I had the strong impression that I was very much an intruder upon their happiness at that moment.

As urgently as I wished I were already home, when the brisk evening air struck my face I decided to walk, hoping that the exercise and the magic of dusk would help me disentangle the thoughts currently jangling through my mind. Because the look West and Gordon had shared upon being reunited after a day's absence seemed to indicate more than the respect of colleagues, more than the bonds of friendship. And that set me thinking about my own circumstances, and my connection with Professor Moriarty, with James.

In spite of the cool of the evening, my face was flushed when I arrived at Baker Street and entered the flat. My friend was in the sitting room, with tea set for two, and a welcoming look on his face that reminded me so much of West's expression that it aroused a complementary feeling in my heart and provoked an involuntary gasp from my lips.

I hoped my slip had escaped notice, but that was to no avail. My friend has read far more from far less, and I saw in his widened eyes that he had seen my reaction and understood from where it came.

"Oh, my dear," he said, and before I could react, he was at my side, one hand grasping mine, preventing me from fleeing, the other hand touching my cheek with a surprising gentleness. "If only you had told me."

"I…did not know," I stuttered.

"Ah," he said succinctly. And then he pulled me closer and…well, propriety forbids me from providing the details of what happened next, but one thing I can say: I have always considered my friend a creature of the intellect who has little patience for the needs of the body. But he showed me such skill, such gentleness, such pleasure that I can see now how limited my view of him had been.

Afterwards, we lay tangled together in his bed, which was far more comfortably appointed than I would have expected, and led me to thinking how else I might have misjudged my friend. I had certainly misjudged the depth, and even the nature of my own feelings for him.

James rested his chin on my shoulder, and draped one arm lazily over my chest, and I have never felt more cherished than I did at that moment.

"What changed?" he asked.

"What?" I said, not quite understanding his question.

"What made you realize-" he broke off and kissed the side of my face "-how you feel?" I turned my head and leaned into his kisses, but he pulled away. "Answer the question," he said with a wry grin. "And then perhaps we can see what else develops."

"Very well," I said, and then gave him a frustrated frown. "It was Gordon and West."

"What about them?"

"I realized that they are…" I trailed off, not quite having the words to describe what Gordon and West clearly were, and what I'd discovered in myself, the vulgar words of the street being far too, well, vulgar.

"Yes, of course," James said impatiently. "But what else?"

"Only that. I've just realized it today, how they look at each other and what they mean to each other. And then I realized it was how I felt, too." I looked away from him, suddenly embarrassed at my lack of perception, worried that James would reject such a dullard as I am.

"Oh," my friend said, and I saw him chewing over this information, dropping it into the appropriate compartments, as he does with all information, all data.

"How long?" I asked in turn.

"Hmmm?" he said, clearly distracted.

"How long have you felt this way?" And just in case he was unclear on what I meant, I kissed him back.

"Well," he said, and a sly smile formed on his lips that made me smile in turn. "From the moment I first clapped eyes on you, of course."

"Of course," I echoed, knowing there was no "of course" about it, but unimaginably cheered by the thought of this brilliant man having such feelings for me from the start.

I lay there, staring at the ceiling and feeling happier than I had since I was a young boy, running through the fields of the family estate, my brothers at my side. I turned to my friend, expecting to see my happiness reflected in his face, but instead found him looking introspective, as he often did when he was considering a particularly difficult problem.

"I begin to wonder," said my friend, "about the true nature of our friends' mission."

"It might help if I knew what that mission was," I said, for I still did not know what he and Gordon did while I was kept occupied with West.

"I'm sorry, my dear," he said. "I can't tell you the details. Though I can tell you it has to do with the current troubles in Russia. Our Queen and their President wish to avoid the sort of unpleasantness going on there at the moment, and have agreed to a sharing of knowledge. Unofficially, of course."

"Of course," I said, though his words stirred up more questions than they answered. I had only heard the merest whispers of rumours about what is going on in Russia, their Czar having cut off all communication with the outside world when things began to go wrong.

"But between you and me, Gordon's investigations have begun to veer into some suspect areas." He stared at the ceiling and sighed. "He's begun to ask rather a lot of questions about our friend Rache, for a start."

I felt my muscles tense at the mention of that man's name, and hoped that my friend did not notice the change in my body. I know it is futile, trying to keep anything from James, but I could not help but remember the letter that criminal Rache wrote to him at the end of that horrific case, the letter that revealed secrets about our Queen of Albion and her kind that haunt my dreams to this day. The letter that I have, against good advice and better judgement, retained in a strongbox at my bank.

"Is that so?" I said, trying to keep my voice neutral.

"Yes." He sighed, and then turned to me with a smile. "But that's enough of that topic. There are far better things we can talk about." He kissed me once again. "Or not talk about."

I was quite happy to not talk about those far better things for as long as we could manage.

* * *

And that was how my life proceeded for several weeks. My days were taken up with being a companion to James West, while my James and Gordon continued their mysterious investigations. My nights were occupied with the greatest love I have ever known. Yes, I use the term love, and I do not use it lightly.

But then came the day that everything changed.

We were waiting in our rooms for Gordon and West to appear for breakfast, West having recovered from his infirmity enough to have resumed our previous habits. But instead of our friends, another little street arab appeared in our sitting room, a slightly crushed envelope held in his hand.

"Which one of youse is Moriarty?" he asked in an accent with more than a touch of Irish about it.

"I am," my friend said, and held out his hand for the envelope.

"Not so fast," the little fellow said. "The bloke what gave me this said you'd pay me a crown for it."

My friend blinked, and then produced a coin from his pocket.

"And so I shall," he said, then handed the coin over in exchange for the envelope. The coin disappeared into the boy's pocket, and he was gone without another word.

James opened the envelope, read the contents, and put both letter and envelope into the fire, all without changing his expression.

"We shall not be hearing from Gordon and West again," he said with finality.

"Why?" I couldn't imagine what the letter could have said that would lead my friend to cut them off so fully. Not when he'd clearly had such a bond with Gordon. Not when we had similar secrets to keep.

"Let us just say that they are not our sort of people after all," he said, and left it at that.

I was left with nothing but my burning curiosity, until later that afternoon, when I left my friend to take a constitutional and rid myself of some of the nervous energy the morning's events had left me with. As I turned the corner, I saw the same street arab that had visited our rooms in the morning leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

"Oi, guv'nor," he said. His hand reached into his pocket and emerged with a second envelope, smaller, and more creased than the one he'd given James. "This one's for you. They told me to give it to you alone."

"I suppose you'll be wanting another crown," I said as I gingerly took the letter from him. 

"Nah." He pushed himself off the wall. "Them other gents more than paid for that one." He started down the street, then stopped and looked back. "They said you should look after yourself. And don't let no one else read that." He nodded at the letter, looked around, and then took off at a run. Within seconds, he'd disappeared into the afternoon crowds.

I tamped down on the increased curiosity that was now flooding through me, and repaired to Regent's Park. I found a bench in a secluded spot, looked around to make sure I was not being observed, took the envelope out of the pocket I'd placed it in, and started to read.

 _My Dear Friend,_ began the letter.

_At least I hope you consider me a friend, and will continue to do so after you have read the contents of this letter. I have definitely come to regard you as a friend._

_The Professor will have already received a letter from Mr. Gordon, though I suspect it will have done nothing to change his mind. If he did not share the contents of that letter with you, let me provide you with its highlights._

_I know you and Professor Moriarty are in the service of your Queen, just as we are in the service of our President, but the time has come to break those ties. The Old Ones, who have viewed humanity as either helpful nuisance or convenient prey in the hundreds of years since their arrival on our planet, now view us as a pestilence to be eradicated. Those who continue to support their rule only stave off their own extinction for a short time._

_My words may sound alarmist or hysterical, but they are not. You may have heard rumblings of troubles in Russia, though you will also know that there have been no details released, officially or unofficially. That is because what is happening in Russia is full-scale revolution._

_Too many people in that country have been made aware of the horrible cost the Czar Unanswerable extracts from his subjects for his rule, and have decided they can no longer tolerate it. A rebellion has risen up, and spreads daily to new cities and provinces. But to combat that rebellion, the Czar has set upon the course of the destruction of all of humanity in his realm._

_Such was the nature of the mission our President sent us on, though we did not know it. We were sent here to share information on technologies of mass death with the rulers of New Albion, and have gradually become aware that those technologies were to be used on our own people. When we thought we were working for the greater safety of our people, even if there were individual sacrifices, we could suffer working for the Old Ones. Now that we know the truth, we have taken up the fight against them._

_There is a war coming. It will be a war not just for freedom, but for the very existence of humankind. Major, I urge you to take up our side in that coming war._

_I know your connection to Moriarty is as strong as mine to Artemus, and yet I urge you to break it. You are an honourable man, and I cannot believe you would condone the course he is set upon. Nor can I believe you would not lend your strength in the fight against this great evil._

_The boy who gave you the letter has orders to appear to you after you have read its contents. If you wish to join us, go with him and he will take you to where we are waiting to embark for the Continent. But you must go immediately, without a goodbye or a warning to Moriarty. If you cannot find it in yourself to join us, then I hope you will not try to thwart us._

_With Sincerest Regards,  
James West_

I folded the letter and replaced it carefully into its envelope. Though my hands were steady and my actions were calm, inside I was churning with indecision and dread.

I had had my doubts about the rule of the Old Ones and our Queen ever since our encounter with Rache, and the letter he left for my friend. Now those doubts had been confirmed in even more forceful terms, and by someone I had come to respect, even to call a friend.

But what was I going to do about those doubts?

Leave James? Unthinkable to abandon such love when I had only just admitted it to myself.

Betray West and Gordon? Equally unthinkable, given that they were intent on fighting the eradication of humanity.

My thoughts spun on and on in an ever-tightening circle, tending first one way, then the other, with neither choice marking itself as obviously the right one, even as the shadows lengthened and the inhabitants of London went about their business around me.

Too soon, the street arab who'd brought me the letter appeared at the edge of the park, half hiding in the shadow of a tree, a questioning look on his face. As he stood there, the answer came to me at last.

I slowly stood, straightened my coat around me, and strode forward to meet my destiny.


End file.
